


The Gravity of Light

by mochegato



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Jasonette, There is no light withuot the dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26253994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochegato/pseuds/mochegato
Summary: After a rough night full of bloody regrets, Jason decides his world is too dark for her and he needs to break up with Marinette.  But Marinette is not as delicate as he thinks and she isn't ready to give up just yet.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 162





	The Gravity of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Very mild cursing and references to violence but no descriptions of it.

Jason watched Marinette flit about her kitchen, truly earning her Pixie nickname. His arm was propped on the back of the couch, fingers tapping impatiently as he sat back against the armrest so he could watch her more easily. She was humming happily to herself as she grabbed the things she needed to finish making the cake she was preparing for him. There was no particular reason for it, she just knew he loved it so she was going to make it for him, as though she sensed his dark mood and instinctually sought to lighten it. She had a small smile and her eyes twinkled as she worked.

This was one of his favorite things to do; watch Marinette. He loved watching her do anything, but he especially loved watching her bake for him. There was something very domestic about it. It made him feel warm and secure. It made him feel like he was home and he had a place there, with her. That they could get married, have children, build a real life.

But he couldn’t. He knew that. And even if he could, he didn’t deserve it, not really. Not that life and not Marinette. Everything in her world was light and soft and kind. Everything in his world was dark and hard and brutal. And the darkness overtook the light, every time. It was like a black hole. No light could escape. Sooner or later, all light succumbed. Everyone in his life succumbed. He was not willing to let that happen to Marinette.

He had tried to break up with Marinette before, several times before. If he was being honest, he thought about it almost every day before he saw her. But as soon as he saw her his resolve disappeared, gone just like the light or maybe it was his darkness that disappeared when he was with her. One look in her brilliant blue eyes and he was lost. Body and soul lost to her radiance.

But today was different. Last night had been rough, rougher than he’d had in a while. It seemed like it had taken him hours to clean the blood off when he had gotten home. It had gotten brutal. He had gotten brutal. He had gone too far and he knew it. Nobody died, at least not yet, but it was close, close enough that it could still happen. The children the thugs had taken had seen more than they should, both before he came and while he was there. That was where he had taken it too far. Not what he did, but that he did it where the kids could see. It would take years of therapy for them to get over all of it, if they ever could. Their innocence had been stolen, the brightness in their eyes dulled, and he had played a part in that. 

God, he didn’t want that for Marinette. She still looked at the world with luminescent eyes, like it was inherently good, like people were inherently good, like everyone had a chance at redemption. Years working with Batman had taught him differently. The League had definitely taught him differently. Working as a crime lord and taking down the worst of Gotham had taught him differently. The Joker had taught him differently. But, she didn’t have to be exposed to that. She could keep that effervescent light that she radiated.

Finally finished with her task in the kitchen, Marinette bounded over to him, wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed him on the top of his head. He wrapped his arms over hers and leaned back into her. She tightened her embrace for a moment then swung around to sit on the couch next to him. “Okay Jay, what is going on? You haven’t made one sarcastic, smartass, or snarky comment all night. I’ve been keeping track, there has not been a single snark in sight,” she joked trying to tease a smile out of him. “Not even a flirty comment or grab for attention. That’s like 90% of your personality gone.”

She looked at him expecting to see at least a hint of a smile but his brow was still furrowed staring at his hands. She looked over at him with concerned eyes and took his hand to rub circles on it with her thumb. “Hey, rough day? …Night? …Both?”

“I’ve been thinking…” he started, refusing to look up.

“About?” She encouraged cautiously.

“About how amazing you are,” he said gently, looking in her eyes and pushing a strand of hair out of her face and running his thumb along her cheek. “And how I don’t deserve you. If I was a better man, I never would have started up with you in the first place. And if I truly want what’s best for you, I’ll walk away. I need to walk away.”

Marinette sucked in a breath, a hurt look crossing her face for a moment before changing to sympathy and understanding. She knew Jason struggled and didn’t want to include her in it, but she wasn’t fragile, damn it. And she wasn’t going to let him suffer alone. “Don’t I get a say in that?” she asked gently.

His eyes were now pleading with her, “Mari… I’m a vigilante. And I'm not one of the good ones. I work with low lives and scum of the earth…”

“Yes, I've met Roy.”

“That’s not…. Okay fair. Not what I meant, but fair.” He pressed his lips into a thin line at Marinette’s cheeky smile. “Come on, I’m trying to be serious here. I’m trying to do the right thing. Stop being cute,” he begged. His eyes softening as he watched her. This is one of the reasons he could never walk away. She knew exactly what to say to make him feel better, to make him feel like he wasn’t cursed.

“You think I’m cute?” she looked up at him with a pretend innocent look in her eyes. He wanted so badly to kiss the smirk off of her face. 

He looked away to refocus with a huff, trying to remember the look in the kids’ eyes, trying to remember the end goal, protecting Marinette. “There’s a reason he’s my best friend, Pixie. I’m not a good guy." He looked back up to her with a desperate look. “You have a good heart and I… I don’t. I don’t want to drag you down with me and I will if I stay with you. Everyone who has the bad luck to be a part of my life gets sucked into the worst parts of it. I’ve seen bad things, I’ve done bad things. I still do. I made choices you never would have made, choices you would never approve of.” 

She nodded in contemplation. “Maybe… I don’t know. It was different for me. Our villains were good people who just had a bad day, well almost all of them. They never wanted to hurt anyone in the first place. They never would have let themselves go that far, it was the akuma that pushed them to become something they weren’t, someone they weren’t. Your villains are terrible people who do terrible, terrible things, things I don’t think I could handle seeing. The things you’ve seen… It’s different. It's easier in some ways and harder in others. I don’t know how I would have reacted in your place, if I knew they could get back out and hurt more kids.”

“I know how you would have reacted. You would try to talk them down and to help them get better. I mean, fuck Mari, you walk around GOTHAM with a smile on your face. Gotham! You give out baked goods to random people on the street. Hell, your favorite color is pink!” His voice was rising now, he couldn’t control it. She needed to understand. “Meanwhile, I’m like the King Midas of turning things to shit. And I don’t want you to be caught in that.”

Marinette fixed him with a firm look, eyes narrowed and lips taut. “Don’t let the pink fool you,” she admonished him. “Just because I like pink, that doesn't mean I haven't seen god awful things, Jason. I’ve gone through terrible things. Done terrible things. I've seen people die, people I loved, die right in front of me, because of me. It wasn’t uncommon. I've had to leave friends behind to be captured or tortured so I could complete the mission. I’ve watched people suffer and beg for death. I've had to push past dead bodies… so many bodies… bodies of children…” her voice got rougher and her eyes unfocused as she remembered the scene before she shook her head trying to dislodge the images, “…to survive, to stop the villain. I've seen the world flooded and the moon destroyed. Don't think for a moment that just because I smile now, that I haven't suffered. I have suffered A LOT. I still do in a lot of ways. I still have nightmares. I still have flashbacks. I still can’t go near large bodies of water without having a complete breakdown. But, I refuse to live in fear. I refuse to let the darkness win. It isn’t stronger than me. I can and will survive it.”

He looked at her in shock and horror. She hadn’t ever spoken about her past like this before. Anytime she discussed her time fighting Hawkmoth she made it seem like fun, like a kid’s show version of superheroes. There were no long lasting consequences. There was no suffering, especially not for her. “How… how did… how can…” he stumbled over the words trying to figure out what he wanted to ask and how to form the words. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? You made it all seem so… How do you… how can you… you walk around with a bounce in your step and a smile on your face like the only thing keeping you down is gravity. How… you make it look easy. How do you still believe there is hope.”

“Having hope has never been easy. It is a choice; to search for light in the Darkness. It's hard. It fucking sucks some days. Some days I can’t do it. Some days I…” she looked down for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I don't deny that the darkness is there. I’m the Guardian, Jason. I see the darkness even when others don’t. I know it's all around me, all around us. And God, Gotham just seems to breed it, doesn’t it. But, I can’t live like that. And it’s actually kind of my job to find the balance, or cause it if I can’t find it. So, if I can't find the light, then I'll become it.” She smiled up at him wanly. “You do the same, you know. You offer hope to Gotham.” He huffed out a disbelieving breath. 

Marinette cocked her head to the side and cupped his face, angling it to look at her. She needed him to see how earnest she was, how deeply she believed what she was saying. “Just because you don’t do it with a smile like Dick does, doesn’t mean you aren’t still doing it. Kids, they see you and they know you’re going to make it okay, that you’re watching out for them. More than any of the other vigilantes, they look to _you_ for hope.” 

She smiled up at him and crawled into his lap, straddling his legs. She slowly ran her hands up his arms, over his shoulders, and up to his neck to run her thumbs along his cheeks. She was now looking at him with the most loving eyes he had ever seen her use. “You do it for me, too. _You_ give me hope. Those nightmares I mentioned, I don’t have them when you’re around. You make me feel safe. _You_ are my light in the dark. I’m not afraid of the darkness as long as you are there with me because I know you’ll stand by me, holding my hand as I tell it to kindly back the fuck off.”

He pulled away from her slightly to look her in the eyes, her shining eyes. He leaned down to touch his forehead to hers before gently touching his lips to hers, quickly tilting his head to deepen it. When she pulled away to look at him again he followed her and recaptured her lips pouring all of his emotions into the second kiss, trying to convey everything he felt about her, all the desperation, the guilt, the love, and the hope. His arms wound around her waist pulling her flush against him. Her hands found their way into his hair and gripping it tightly. She finally broke away from him to catch her breath.

He stared in her brilliant eyes that had their own center of gravity and it made him believe; believe there was hope, believe he could have a future with her, a life, kids. That it was all possible. That maybe they could be a light for each other. He gave in to the promise he saw in her eyes, rising up so he could push her down onto the couch, crashing his lips into hers again, as if to seal the promise. 


End file.
